To the Daily:
I am responding to your editorial ("Deadline failure," 1/28/97) regarding the pass/fail deadline. I would like to refer you to the College of Engineering Bulletin, Page 81, where it states: "The decision to elect a course on a pass/fail basis or on a graded basis must be made within the first nine weeks of the term (or first four-and-one-half weeks of a half term)."
In the future, please check your information before you print your editorials and/or articles in the Daily. The College of Engineering spends a lot of time and effort in making sure that our students get the correct information pertinent to their academic curriculum and requirements.
I would hope that you give prominent place to this letter since there are now more than 5,000 College of Engineering students that have been misinformed on the deadline for pass/fail. The pass/fail deadline for the College of Engineering for winter '97 is March 18, 1997.
Mercedes G. Barcia
Engineering adviser
To the Daily:
I am writing concerning the article about the men's basketball pep band ("Men's basketball band needs to add more pep," 1/27/97) by Barry Sollenberger.
I am an unusual student in that I will go out of the way to read the Daily every day. While I rarely agree with the liberal stances that the Daily takes on many issues, I appreciate the information provided about events going on at the University.
However, I took particular offense to the comments made by Sollenberger.
I will be the first to admit that something needs to be done about the noise level at Crisler Arena. I have had basketball season tickets for all three years that I have been here and, with the exception of the Michigan State games, I have been greatly disappointed by the atmosphere of the arena.
It seems as if one of our best tactics is to rattle opponents who are shooting free throws with the eerie silence that falls over the arena when the opposing player steps to the line.
However, I think the band is the last area that needs to be criticized. Whenever the opposing team has the ball the most noise is coming from the band area. They are screaming as loud as possible at the opposing team while the students spend time screaming at the people in front of them to "sit down."
In addition, Sollenberger suggested that the band play during intermissions other than timeouts in the game. I would guess that the average out-of-bounds play lasts at most five seconds. I have never heard, nor could imagine, a band playing something meaningful in five seconds.
Finally, we all know that the problem is that students are not allowed to sit around the whole court side. How many times has the student section been filled from the court-side seats up to the ceiling while there will be empty court side seats on the other side? I don't think the reason that Cameron Indoor Stadium is so intimidating is because the Duke alumni are wild. Rest assured, the atmosphere at Crisler is pathetic, but let's look at the real reasons and not target something that is trying so hard to improve the situation.
Mark D. Berquist
LSA junior
To the Daily:
Katie Wang's artic le regarding University alum John Schroeder's donation to the University ("'U' donor sets goals for gift," 1/28/97) failed to mention Schroeder's eldest daughter Patty, who graduated from the University in May 1996.
Although I realize that the article concentrates on the benefits that the donation will provide to athletes, I just wanted to make sure that Patty was not forgotten. I praise Wang for an excellent article.
Melissa Koenigsberg
LSA senior
To the Daily:
We would like to point out the anti-Canadian sentiments expressed in the hockey coverage by the Daily. In the article "Getting a Legg Up" (1/27/97) by Mark Snyder, the writer refers to London, Ontario (Canada), as a "small town."
If the writer had checked his facts, instead of assuming that any Canadian town must be "small," he would have learned that London is in fact three times as large as the city of Ann Arbor (303,165 persons in the 1991 Canadian census versus 109,592 in the 1990 U.S. census).
Not all Canadian cities consist of a two Eskimos in an igloo eating back bacon and drinking Molson while watching Hockey Night in Canada re-runs.
Signed: People for the Understanding of Canadian Knowledge (PUCK).
(Regroupment pour la Comprehension de la Connaissons Canadienne.)
James D. Hamilton Mark Lubinski
Rackham
To the Daily:
The planned mammoth cafeteria for the Hill area clearly addresses some of the University's penny-pinching needs and may indeed lead to more edible food for students condemned to endless cafeteria meals. It seems like an unsentimental, corporate approach, and leverages well the economies of scale the University's business professors are so fond of.
None of that, however, negates the fact that this is a folly of the first order and runs exactly counter to some of the better thinking that has evolved at the University in the last few years. I believe this plan would obliterate the community atmosphere I valued so much in my two years living in Mosher-Jordan.
The University has endeavored, with great success, to create welcoming communities through the Pilot Program, the 21st Century Program, The Honors Program, the Residential College and similar projects. Rather than being a serial number, students are given a sense of place and of individuality when this philosophy is used.
Now, rather than having a home-away-from-home, students will pony up to the trough alongside thousands of others. They will be treated, inevitably, like "customers," to use Regent Phillip Power's (D-Ann Arbor) word. Gone, I imagine, will be the comfortable, civilized surroundings and wood paneling of the MoJo and Stockwell dining rooms. Gone will be the sense of intimacy, or the comfort of being surrounded by familiar faces. Gone will be any sense of home.
In their zeal to conserve money, the regents should remember that they are building a dining hall, not a mess hall. As this eyesore is cobbled together, one can only hope that a few creature comforts are preserved.
Scot Woods
University alum